Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Netenyahu's shifty eyes

Eyes can tell you a lot. At yesterday's [6 July 2010] Barack & Bibi show at the White House, the world media was treated to Israel's prime minister shifty, darting eyes as he assured us the viewers that he and the US president were on the same page.Yet with his smug, self assured smile of the cat that ate the canary and his 'playful' eyes you knew like a used car sales trying to palm off an 'edsel', he wouldn't nor couldn't be trusted.Mr. Obama looked glum. He barely cracked his 'winning' smile to the camera. He had by elections to win in November, a restive Congress who wore fealty to Israel on their sleeves, and an uneasy Jewish lobby who usually give big bucks to the Democrats to beat back questions of his breaking faith with his Abrahamic brothers.The Barack & Bibi show swept differences under the political carpet. And Mr. Obama chewed the bone of discontent.Bibi Netenyahu agreed to move on the peace agreement but not to face to face talks with the Palestinian Authority.Barack Obama swallowed his political cud by not insisting on a halt--albeit temporary--to illegal settlements in East Jerusalem or the West Bank. He hardly uttered a peep about Israel's illegal, piratical assault on the Peace Flotilla, which resulted in a shooting attack on the Turkish ship 'Mavi Marmara' ending up with 9 Turks dead, of which one was an American citizen. He did have praise for the 'easing' of the Israeli land, but not sea, blockade of the Gaza Strip. You would have thought a little more ketsup and sugar and chips would go a long way to satisfy the hungry Palestinians held hostage by the Israeli blockade, was a step forward. Wrong!The two leaders looked as though they had changed water in wine and they had performed a miracle. Wrong again!The differences remain and will resurface soon enough. The US is pushing Israel to fess up on owning a nuclear stockpile and to sign the non nuclear treaty which it has refused to do, hidding as it does in neither affirming nor denying it has any, although the world knows different. In fact recently made public a document signed by the 'Nobel peace laureat' Shimon Peres and PW Botha the Apartheid South African president, which stated Israel's willingness to supply racist South Africa with nuclear weapons. Then there is the matter of illegal land grabs in the West Bank and the illegal seizure of houses occupied by Arabs in East Jerusalem for poaching Israeli settlers. And of course, a thorough investigation of the attack and murder of the peaceniks in the Peace Flotilla in May 2010.Globally Israel is fast becoming a pariah state terrorist. And even more threatening for Bibi & co. is the growing trends, especially among younger American Jews who are tepid to cold in their support of Israel. A recent 'Wall Street Journal' article on the divide in the Walnut section, the Jewish section of Pittsburgh, in the state of Pennsylvania, speaks of this growing trend. It closes with a complaint on the part of an older member of the Jewish community who has read the signs on the temple war: only a minority and mostly elderly Jews remain strong in their support of Israel.What will shifty eyes Netenyahu say to that?